At the heart of Studio A is a 24-channel Auditronics “Son of 36 Grand” 501 console. Made in Memphis, TN in the 1970s, the 501 is known for its thick, musical 4-band inductor EQ and Jensen transformer-based preamps. As a company, Auditronics built famous consoles for Spectra Sonics, whose discrete consoles were famously used at Stax Records, also in Memphis. In designing their own flagship product in the mid-’70s, the 501, engineers attempted to make a slightly more affordable Class AB console using a lot of the same parts. Over the years, the 501 developed a reputation all its own. It can be heard on Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” (‘76) or Leif Garrett’s “Surfin’ USA” (‘77).
This rare, 16 channel Opamp Labs board from the ‘70s is installed as a sidecar in the studio for an alternative to the Auditronics. Made in Los Angeles until very recently, they feature gritty transistor preamps, inductor EQs, and honking big UTC transformers on 4 busses + L/R outputs which combine to produce an astonishingly thick low-end. You can hear the sound as a mixing board on tracks like “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy (‘72), and as a tracking board on newer records like St. Vincent’s “Daddy’s Home” (‘21) & Adrian Younge’s “Jazz is Dead” series.